A GROUP OF TWELVE.

I do not doubt that there would be ten or a dozen men in Parliament who would
represent our views, some or all of them belonging to our organisation.
These men, feeling that they had a considerable body behind them, might more
easily be induced to stand firmly, and refuse all offers of office, or local
and personal benefits, which could be accepted only at the
page: 142 cost of laying aside their functions of
criticism.

At elections we should exert our influence. In every instance we should, if
we were true to our principles, throw our weight, small though it might be,
into the scale of that man, whether Dutchman or Englishman, whom we could
most depend upon to act in accordance with our principles or do least
violence to them. Where we could not possibly return a member of our own we
could, by throwing our weight in the scale of the man most desirable or
least objectionable, turn many elections. If, as an organisation, we stood
firm to our
convic-
convictions
page: 143 tions, we should frequently have
the casting vote.

I think it will be necessary for us to set clearly before ourselves from the
very start the fact that we have not organised ourselves to support any
given body of politicians, but to see our policy enforced; that we have
nailed to our mast-head, not the names of individuals, but a declaration of
our principles. While a man acts in accordance with these, he is one of us;
when he does not, then he ceases to be of us. We could as little have
supported the recent Ministry under Mr. Rhodes, because three of the ablest
and most liberal men of
page: 144 the country bore
office in it, as we could the present Ministry. The bitterest wrong which
leaders can inflict upon their crew is when they take service on the enemy's
ship, and prevent their fellows from attacking it, for fear of wounding
them. Under such circumstances there is nothing to be done but to fire,
regardless whether you bring down your own absconded leaders or the enemy;
and this, even though they may have been partly actuated by a desire to
impede the enemy's sailing powers when they took service.

As Progressives, we should not be moved an inch out of
page: 145 our path by the fact that any man calls himself
an Oppositionist, or is the member of any existing Government. We should
endeavour to support or oppose any man or Ministry with strict impartiality,
exactly as it opposed or supported the principles we represent. As long as a
man, in any single instance, supported them, did he call himself Bondsman or
Retrogressive, he should have our steadfast approval.

That captious criticism, and disingenuous judgment, which would condemn any
measure brought in or supported by a member of an opposing political
faction, and which is almost
in-
inevitable
page: 146 evitable where men have turned
politics into a game, and are playing to make points, should be wholly
foreign to the spirit of such an organisation as our own, whose chief end
should be the passing of those measures we believe beneficial, and not the
seeing of those men who call themselves our representatives for the moment
captains in the political game.

Were such an organisation as I have suggested formed which would draw into
itself the scattered Progressive Elements throughout the whole country,
despising none; and which should seek to draw its strength, not from
numbers, but from the
page: 147 determination and
the impersonal aims of its members; which should endeavour to influence
political life without throwing itself into the whirlpool of political
ambitions; and which should stand outside, consistently fighting for its own
principles—such an organisation, though including perhaps at first not many
noted political names, but formed of the people and for the people, would, I
believe, slowly and surely grow. For the first two years our occupation
would be mainly that of self-organisation, and the education of public
feeling. I believe that in five years' time we should be a power in the
page: 148 land, able to restore the Retrogressive
Influences to that healthy and natural position in which they would form a
conservative safeguard, preventing the inauguration of measures too far in
advance of the social condition of the community. I believe that in fifteen
or twenty years' time our aims, which now appear chimerical to a part of the
community, will be then but an attempt to give voice to the convictions of
the people. And this I believe is worth working and waiting for.